How Japanese partnerships and Indian whiskey spawned a $9 billion automotive giant

Before Vivek Chaand Sehgal will make a name in the case of building automotive components and creating lucrative associations, he worked with the idea of ​​making plastic straws.

It was the 1970s, a chaotic time in wax paper straw that tended to disintegrate. A young Sehgal has told that he had the right product at the right time. Finally, it was decided otherwise, and instead the son of manufacture entered.

He was pushed by his father, a mining engineer with the government, who felt that the son and wires would be better than straw.

But even in the early days, Sehgal companies focused on strong family ties. His first partner, for example, was his mother. “Because my father was in the government, my mother and I started the company,” said Sehgal, 61, in an interview in his spacious office in Greater Noida.

There were also funds for the company came from his maternal grandfather. Something proper, in 1975, the company was named Motherson.

For more than four decades, Sehgal took over the small business in New Delhi and turned it into a giant automotive components manufacturer with an annual turnover of about 9 billion. The Motherson Group Samvardhana, as it is now known, operates more than 230 facilities in 33 countries, with more than 100 000 people.

It’s a remarkable story of growth and gestation woven around Seghal’s firm focus on the automotive industry and the talent to support partnerships with some of the world’s largest automakers.

From an initial standpoint of automobile and motorcycle companies in India, Motherson has through 19 and 26 acquisitions of joint ventures, grown to become one of the largest manufacturers of wiring harnesses, mirrors, panel modules, cladding Of the doors and bumpers in the world market of passenger cars.

The group’s plans for future growth are even bolder. By 2020, Sehgal expects to nearly triple its revenue by 26 billion. “The target of 2020 is my goal for the firm,” said Sehgal, who currently serves as chair of the group. “This gives me a clear direction to take the group that I want.”

After that, the Motherson direction passes from parent to child, and it is for the VP 35, Laksh Vaaman Sehgal, to draw the group track at a time of extraordinary disruption in the automotive industry.

In the early 1980s, when Suzuki launched its collaboration with Maruti Udyog to enter India, Motherson was still a manufacturer of wires and cables. “We had a horrible time from 77 to 82,” said Sehgal, “Actually, no one wanted such quality.” The only concern was the price.

Then Maruti Suzuki arrived on the scene, scout for a local company that could provide the wiring harnesses, a complex set of son connecting the various components of a vehicle, for his next car, the Maruti 800 icon. Keen board, Sehgal if you show up at the office to find a drawing wiring harnesses that Maruti wanted.

When asked the question, a Sikh gentleman from the company gave him a T-connector (a device that is used to connect three cables) with an instruction to reproduce quickly. Otherwise, there would be no design and, consequently, no agreement.